" Is there anybody there? " said
the Traveler,Knocking on the moonlit door;And his horse in the silence
champed the grassesOf the forest's ferny floor:And a bird flew up out of the
turret,Above the Traveler's head:And he smote upon the door again
a second time;

" Is there anybody there?" he
said.

But no one descended to the Traveler;No head from the leaf fringed
sillLeaned over and looked into
his grey eyes,Where he stood perplexed and
still.

But only a host of phantom listenersThat dwelt in the lone house
thenStood listening in the quiet
of the moonlightTo the voice from the world
of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams
on the dark stair,That goes down to the empty
hall,Harkening in an air stirred
and shakenBy the lonely Traveler's call

And he felt in his heart their
strangeness,Their stillness answering his
cry,While his horse moved, cropping
the dark turf,'Neath the starred and leafy
sky;

For he suddenly smote on the
door, evenLouder, and lifted his head:
---"Tell them I came, and no one
answered,That I kept my word," he said.

Never the least stir made the
listeners,Though every word he spakeFell echoing through the shadowiness
of the still houseFrom the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon
the stirrup,And the sound of iron on stone,And how the silence surged softly
backward,When the plunging hoofs were
gone.